McCloskey Business Plan Competition announces winners

After nine months of perfecting their business plans, teams competing for nearly $300,000 in cash and prizes put it on all the line April 19 at the Mendoza College of Business.

In a close contest among six finalists, Contect emerged as the winner of the $25,000 McCloskey Business Plan Competition grand prize. Christian Poellabauer and Patrick Flynn, faculty members in computer science, presented their technology for a new, instantaneous, accurate concussion assessment tool that will be particularly helpful in detecting concussions in soldiers and athletes. The service captures an individual’s voice and detects subtle changes that may indicate a concussion.

Sponsored by the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship in the Mendoza College, the competition is for ventures that have not been launched or are in the earliest stages of launch.

The top social venture award, the Klau Family Prize for Greatest Social Impact, went to Green Bridge Growers, an urban aquaponics farm designed as a social enterprise to produce revenue and create jobs for highly capable young adults with autism in the South Bend community. Mendoza’s undergraduate Social Entrepreneurship class began working with Green Bridge founder Jan Pilarski last fall as she began to address this unique market opportunity in South Bend.

Karen Slaggert, associate director of the Gigot Center, believes that every participant is a winner. “We are so very pleased with the exceptional quality and diversity which was evident within our participants this year. Our goal is to set these new ventures up for success in the market by providing mentoring, networking, feedback and exceptional resources for each team. We are particularly pleased that we continue to see a large number of social ventures, those that seek to address a significant social concern. These ventures are the embodiment of Mendoza’s challenge to ‘Ask More of Business, Ask More of Yourself.’” Gigot Center director Jeff Bernel added, “The plans presented this year were the best I have seen. They were diverse and intriguing with each one having the potential of becoming a sustainable and successful future business.”

Mendoza students Luke Heneghan and Brad Kunisky were the only undergraduate students to advance to the semifinal round, presenting Green Energy Zambia, a social enterprise that seeks to provide affordable and renewable energy sources for the sub-Saharan African region of the world. Current MBA students Konrad Billetz, Melissa Cheng, Stephanie Pellerito and Ryan Welsh led their new venture, Frameri Eyeglass Co., to the final round of the competition, winning $36,000 in cash and in-kind prizes.

Sutherland Family Award for Best Presentation ($5,000): Frameri Eyeglass Co.

A total of 148 teams entered the McCloskey Competition last fall. Nearly 700 members of the Notre Dame community served as team members, judges and mentors. The final event also included a Venture Fair, which was a science fair-type exhibit in which more than 40 entrepreneurs put their new ventures on display. Mendoza student-led teams Green Energy Zambia and Frameri Eyeglass Co. walked away with $1,000 cash prizes for best presentation.

The McCloskey Competition has taken on a unique role in the commercialization pipeline at Notre Dame, helping to move these high-tech ventures to commercialization from their genesis in research. The Gigot Center helps to provide the necessary resources — an entrepreneurial toolkit of software, mentoring, networking and feedback — to help aspiring Notre Dame entrepreneurs as they develop the business model, write the business plan and launch the venture.

Gigot Center founder Gary Gigot has been a part of the McCloskey Competition since the beginning. “Entrepreneurship came into focus at Notre Dame in 1997. Our goal was to ‘create a sense of the possible.’ Fast forward to the 2013 McCloskey Business Plan Competition, and you now see visionary and pragmatic ND entrepreneurs defining and broadening what is possible in a range of business models and sectors. Ambitious, complete and convincing business plans are now the norm.”

Kilpatrick Townsend Kickstart Award ($5,000 in legal services for company formation; a “credit line” of up to $25,000 to be used for legal services until company reaches $500,000 in external financing): Contect, DM Oligonucleotides, Empower and Torigen Pharmaceuticals.

Fish & Richardson Award for IP Services ($25,000 in IP services given to the team most deserving of assistance relating to IP services): $15,000 awarded to Contect, $5,000 awarded to Frameri Eyeglass Co. and $5,000 awarded to Empower (Oak Financial).

The Gigot Center was founded in 1998 for the purpose of fostering innovation and infusing aspiring entrepreneurs with a sense of the possible. Through rigorous coursework, business plan competitions, extensive networking and mentorship, and hands-on learning experiences, the center provides students with the knowledge and skills vital to entrepreneurship.

For more information about the Gigot Center, call 574-631-3042 or visit gigot.nd.edu.